Week of October 19th

Of course being the academics that we are we immediately started our research on how we would “celebrate” the state of Washington. For obvious reasons, like that none of us are independently wealthy; traveling to the state of the week wasn’t exactly in the budget.

Not only that but a Washington snow globe wasn’t in the inventory. EBay here I come.

Since we haven’t been able to come up with any guidelines, Washington State (and probably many states to come) would be celebrated by enjoying the foods, drinks and music indigenous to the “Evergreen State”.

So Sunday night (just in the nick of time) we gathered together for dessert to share an apple pie topped by soft serve ice cream (Washington being the 1st place this was served) and pears. Of course there had to be Starbucks coffee but if the preference was for something stronger we had a nice bottle of Gewürztraminer from the winery Chateau Ste. Michelle in the Columbia valley.

The ironic thing is we have been drinking this wine for years and we never knew the winery was in Washington. So here I am in the grocery store looking for a wine from the Pacific Northwest and discovered that we’ve been drinking one all along. Such the trend setters that we are.

As luck would have it we happened to have a DVD of Jimi Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock. Of course you already knew that Hendricks haled from the great state of Washington. So we sat eating apple pie, listening to one of the most important musicians of his time, reminiscing about Woodstock. One of us had been there (but didn’t see Jimi), one of us had parents that thought we were too young to go and one of our Moms’ travelled cross country from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock. (What does that tell you about of age differences?) We also had the game of Pictionary (invented in Washington) in the wings in case the urge overcame us.

So we ate, drank and toasted the soggy state in the Northwest…Celebration Washington!

Color in the “Evergreen State” in the top left-hand corner of the map. Two down, 50 to go.

One last thing before we adjourn for the night, pick the next state…..does anyone know anything about MICHIGAN?